Life Lessons From a Paramedic and a Housewife in the Georgia Hills

This weekend, I packed up the car and drove 7.5 hours north to a town in southern Georgia.  The purpose of my journey was to run a race through the countryside, but as you’ll soon learn, it ended up being way more impactful than I anticipated.

Let’s start on the highway.  In case you aren’t aware, Florida is the longest state ever.  Just when you’re about to swerve off the road and end the suffering of 5 hours on the Florida Turnpike, you realize…  You still haven’t even come close to making it out of the state.

After surviving the Turnpike, I arrived in Georgia unharmed and was greeted with the sound of golf ball-sized insects splatting against my windshield and a warm hug from the most oppressive humidity I’ve ever experienced.

Enter Abbeville, GA…  Pronounced Abbey•vull.  Population 2,908.  Home to both a Dollar General and a Family Dollar within two blocks of each other, catering to all of your needs and offering an endless supply of rainbow-colored Slinkies.

It turns out Abbeville is unlike any place I’ve ever been in the United States.  Abbeville is raw.  It’s driven by an unapologetically simple way of life.  It’s a place where people know every aspect of each other’s lives.

During my time in Abbeville, I ended up chatting with a nice lady who asked me where I was from.  I guess something told her I wasn’t a local…  Perhaps the South Beach-ready tank top gave it away.  Who knows?

She started telling me about life in Abbeville and how it affects her view of our country.  At one point in her description, she said, “We all just seem to get stuck here.  Even most of the rich people have trouble breaking out.”

Curious, I asked her to explain what it takes to become “successful” by Abbeville standards.

Her first story involved a man who spent his entire career building log homes.  With a population slightly larger than my entire high school, I can’t imagine there’s that much demand for log homes in Abbeville, but I guess he made it work.

She continued describing a second home builder who ended up moving his screened porch business from Abbeville to Florida and is now worth millions.

After a few minutes, she paused and said, “I don’t think I’ll move anywhere else though.  I like it here.  I mean…  Look around.  It’s beautiful!”

I turned and looked around.  I looked really really hard.

But I didn’t see what she saw — just woods, fields, more swarms of super natural bugs, and not another human being anywhere in sight.

A few hours later, I found myself talking to a guy who works as a paramedic for the county.  We had a similar conversation about Abbeville, life, and through a strange twist of topics, wild animal encounters (of which Abbeville seems to have plenty).

As I always do when speaking with people in the medical field, I asked him about the craziest cases he had seen.  He shared some fascinating stories, but what piqued my interest was the escapade they have to go through every time someone needs to go to the hospital.

The local hospital is 30 min. from Abbeville, and the nearest trauma center sits 75 miles away in Macon (nearly impossible to reach except via helicopter).

In contrast, I have 4 trauma centers within 16 miles of my front door.

On my way home, I started thinking about the United States.  I too reflected over and over again on my conversations with the paramedic and the housewife I left back in Abbeville, GA.

Each state, each city in our country is so radically different.

Too often, we get caught defining America by our major cities and the way of thinking that prevails in these distinct, often prosperous metros.  As we clearly saw during the last election (and I witnessed on my journey to Abbeville), America is so much more than a handful of cosmopolitan cities.

Yes, America might be the banks of Wall Street and the red carpets of Hollywood.

But the same America is a place where you can walk down the street and eat arepas from a mom who just moved her family from Venezuela.

The same America is a place where you can revel in the beauty of farmland, find happiness in the middle of Georgia, and grow your screened porch business from nothing and make millions.

The same America is a place where sheer human ingenuity has devised a way to keep people on the verge of death alive as they race down winding country roads to the nearest hospital.

Our country spans vast cultural, economic, and geographic divides from Abbeville’s Main Street to the hipster bars of Brooklyn and the slowly shrinking beaches of Miami, but we live in the same America.

We are in this together — you, me, the paramedic, the mom, the banker, the housewife and the 321 million other people who call America home.

As wonderful as this sounds in theory, the truth is not all of our interests are represented equally.  Just turn on the TV, and we see example after example of breakdowns in our supposedly representative system of governance.

I would argue the path to solving this systemic problem begins first with understanding — an understanding of how people with varying perspectives view life in our country.

Pick a random town, go visit, and get the hell out of your comfort zone.  Or better yet…  Walk ten blocks to a different part of your city, and chat with a stranger.

The more accurately and fairly we can represent the voices of our citizens, the stronger and more effective we will be as a country.

This, my friends, is what will continue to make America great.

See you next Sunday at 8:30pm.  🙂

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About Me

Hi, I'm Austin.

After graduating from Elon University, I moved to Miami, FL through the Venture For America Fellowship Program.

Miami has since become my home where I spend my free time running, biking, taking pictures, and trying to become friends with Pitbull.

I'm always looking for the next challenge.  That's exactly why I started my own business-to-business sales company, launched the Miami Talent Pipeline, and most recently committed to sharing 52 ideas with you for the next year.

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